00 Flour

[Debbborra]

Let me tell you a story. I've been making fresh pasta, pizza and bread. Specifically Italian bread. I've been using Semolina for the pasta and bread flour for the rest. I don't have any flour related complaints about this. It's all good. But you know you go on the Internet and you read stuff and you ideas. And that's just dangerous.

So, I keep reading about 00 flour. 00 flour is the magic flour from Italy that makes everything perfect. The best pasta! The best pizza! The best Italian bread. So, you know, it was important to get my hands on this stuff. I mean, come on, haven't you all already started shopping in another window for the stuff? Irresistible!

So, I went to the Italian market. They sold me a lovely red bag of Italian Chef's Flour. I looked at that bag for 10 minutes before buying it. Trying to figure out if this was like bread flour, or all purpose flour. And in those 10 minutes I'm sure that most of you would have rotated that bag 45 degrees and looked at the protein content. I didn't do that.

So, I now have a big bag of flour from Italy. It's got a 3g of protein per serving. Not four. Four would have been useful.

I need to think of something make with my chef's flour. (In most countries chef's can use any darn flour they want Italy!) I could make brownies or muffins or snickerdoodles. The thing is I went out of the way and walked my big behind over to the Italian store for the magic 00 Italian flour. I want to do something with it that will be noticeably enhanced by the finer milled flour. I'm taking suggestions. (My first thought was Sfinge, but I have no desire to go out to buy mascarpone.)

 

[Debbborra]

Turns out you can make bread with it. Really nice bread. Nicer than I've managed so far with bread flour. I'm so confused now.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Turns out you can make bread with it. Really nice bread. Nicer than I've managed so far with bread flour. I'm so confused now.

Caputo has 12% protein, enough gluten for bread. It’s also unbleached so it aids performance in things like bread and pizza. Bleaching breaks down the protein molecules, making a weaker gluten network. It creates a shorter bite, with less chew, qualities we love in cake, but not bread. But unbleached flour gives you good gluten structure, a nice bite and more chew, qualities we love in bread.

Tipo 00 also makes excellent pasta and pizza.

If you use it for pizza you have to make adjustments to the hydration. The 00 indicates the grind of the flour form finest (00) to the coarsest (2).

That finer grind means less hydration. I’ve seen a lot of sites that state the finer grind means you need higher hydration. That is not correct. And in my own personal experience I find that 65% is about as high as you want to go. Above that and the dough becomes too slack.

If you make pizza with it you will need a very hot pizza stone.

The pizza stone should be heated for about an hour at 550°.

Reduce the oil in your recipe to about 1% - 2% maximum.

Leave the sugar in there.

You’ll have to play around with the hydration, but the sweet spot be somewhere between 60% - 65%.

I don’t know what the ratios are for pasta since I never measure anything when I make pasta. I just dumped a bunch of flour on the counter, make a well. Then put in 1 egg per person, and one extra for the pot.

 

[Debbborra]

You answered the questions I hadn't even asked. I actually threw this bread together without a recipe. 1 lb of the flour, 294 g of water. 7g yeast, and a half tablespoon of salt. I figured 65% was the magic number so that's where I went.

The texture was perfect. I wish I could get that to happen with bread flour. I'd love to make enriched doughs that nice.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

You answered the questions I hadn't even asked. I actually threw this bread together without a recipe. 1 lb of the flour, 294 g of water. 7g yeast, and a half tablespoon of salt. I figured 65% was the magic number so that's where I went.

The texture was perfect. I wish I could get that to happen with bread flour. I'd love to make enriched doughs that nice.

That is so cool that your baking instincts were so accurate!

 

[Debbborra]

That is so cool that your baking instincts were so accurate!

I've just been reading.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

That’s how we learn.